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Resistance

Among the things that make someone reliable is an ability to remain steadfast in your beliefs and your actions, even in the face of fierce resistance. One man who did that was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer was executed at age 39 in a concentration camp after having resisted the Nazi regime’s elevation of Hitler and its racism against Jews. His was among the few voices speaking and acting out against a largely popular Nazi government. After the Nazis created a set of laws (the Nuremberg laws) that officially recognized the Jews as “subjects” instead of citizens, Bonhoeffer resisted by joining a secret military intelligence organization whose goal was to undermine the Nazis; and by helping to smuggle fourteen Jews out of Germany.

Although they were aware of his tendency to speak against them, the Nazis didn’t know how far he would go to stop them. He was aware of different plots on Hitler’s life, and believed it was fully necessary to assassinate the Fuhrer. This is what made Bonhoeffer so unique: Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor. It was virtually unprecedented for a theologian to advocate assassinating (or even actively resisting) their leader in Germany, but Bonhoeffer did. Even among his friends, he felt somewhat alone in this belief, but he never wavered from it. This is what made him reliable: he maintained his stance even when he felt alone in it. It was because of that stance that Bonhoeffer was eventually killed. Already under arrest for helping to smuggle Jews out of the country, Bonhoeffer was sent to a concentration camp (Flossenburg), where he was hanged not long before the Nazis were defeated in World War II.

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